The flutter of a Nightingale
by Blackdragon159
Summary: Clarke Griffin is a trained nurse working for the British SOE during the second world war, she is chosen for an infiltration mission at a German run hospital in France, her mission is to find and extract a French Resistance movement member named Bellamy Blake. World War 2 AU
1. Chapter 1

Clarke Griffin was born in Berlin during the end of the so called Great War. Her mother was one of the only female doctors in the city and her father was a highly respected engineer, they were quite wealthy and lived in a nice part of the city. Her mother had been forced to quit practicing medicine after she had Clarke, but she moved her energy from medicine to politics instead. She was a loud voice in the fight for the vote.

She was a blonde young woman with blue eyes that usually shone with happiness. She had pale skin which reddened easily during hot summer days, and when she felt embarrassed. She was average height but she liked wearing small heeled shoes to feel taller.

Clarke had had a dream of becoming a doctor since she was a little girl, she had gotten the fascination for it one day after she had fallen out of a tree, in the backyard, onto a rock, which opened huge gash in her leg. Her mother had been inside and had heard her shout and come rushing out. When she saw the gash she had run back inside and fetched her medical kit, which she had kept since her days as a Doctor, and she had sewed up the wound with small precise stitches. Clarke had been fascinated and instead of staring at the blood pouring out of her leg, she had watched her mother's precise movements and unshaking hands fix her.

During the troubles that followed the defeat that Germany suffered and the subsequent problems that the country faced because of the huge amount of money they had to pay to the winning side, Clarke's parents decided to send her to England for a short time to go to school. She was nine years old when she and her mother set off for England. They first took a train through France to the coast and then boarded a ferry over the channel. Clarke's mother did not stay with her in England, she went back to Berlin to try to continue her political pursuits while Clarke stayed in England at an all girls' boarding school. She was in the school for three years until she was twelve and only saw her parents briefly during the holidays during those years.

Clarke had been an excellent student during that time and her teachers wrote great things about her to her parents, but she had been lonely, first because she didn't know the language well and later because the other girls resented her because the teachers liked her. She was grateful to be able to go back to her home again after that time, to be able to see her friends again, Wells Jaha whose father was a politician and worked with Clarke's mother, and Nathan Miller whose family lived in the apartment next to Clarke's.

Clarke spent her youth doing as much studying as she possibly could, she was accepted to University to study to become a Doctor when she was eighteen years old. She was unable to finish her studies because the war broke out in 1939.

Clarke's father Jacob Griffin was employed by the Nazi government to build new and improved airplanes for the military. He started this work in the early 30's and was well respected in his field. He was so well respected that government officials used to invite him and his wife to social gatherings at their homes. At one of these gatherings in 1938 Jacob was in the office of the host speaking and drinking, when his host left to socialize with some of the other guests. Jacob had by that time noticed all the anti Jewish laws that had come in effect of the last few years, he had many friends who were Jewish and he had noticed the strain they went through now when they were no longer allowed to work in almost any profession.

He knew that the man whose house he was in that day was high in the government and he hoped that he may find papers pertaining to the new laws, to be able to warn people, of future laws that may come to be passed soon. He found just that and more while looking around papers on the man's desk. He found papers pertaining to camps which seemed to be built to house hundreds of people. He only found drawings of the camps, but those drawings gave him a very bad feeling.

He stole some of the documents and brought them home with him. He showed the documents to his wife and he told her that he would try to bring it up with a friend he had in the government, he thought that if he had an official government employee backing him then he could take the documents to the newspapers and expose these plans to the country, surely there would be a public outcry against plans of sending thousands of people, possibly hundreds of thousands to camps where they would be forced to live, like prisoners.

The next day the Schutzstaffel, or SS as they were called by most people, came to their house the very next day and arrested Jacob Griffin for stealing official government documents with intention of treason. He was sentenced guilty for treason and executed for the offence a month later.

Clarke left school the same day she heard of her father's arrest, she did not return to her studies. She joined her mother in trying to help people instead. Her mother together with Thelonius Jaha and many others had started to help pay for Jewish families to get out of the city and out of the country. They had both been banned from political work because they had been too loud in their arguments against the restricting laws placed upon the Jewish population.

Clarke's friend Nathan Miller and his father left Berlin during the winter of 1938 and went to live with family they had in France. Before they left they tried to convince both Clarke and her mother to leave the country with them, the scent of war had started to become stronger everywhere and there was no denying that a war was going to start, that Germany would be one of the countries involved. The military had started to become very big and visible and the government spoke often of taking back stolen land.

Both Clarke and her mother refused to leave, they believed that they could do more there than anywhere else and that if they could help then they could not leave. Thelonius convinced his son to flee to America where they had an old family friend who was willing to take him in.

Clarke noticed the hostile atmosphere in the city and could not understand how people ignored it and continued on with their everyday lives. When they started to mark Jewish citizens Clarke started to get a very bad feeling. It was now possible to clearly distinguish between Jewish people and others, and Clarke did not like how easily she could see that they were put outside the protection of the society. Which would make them easy targets.

Thelonius Jaha was sent to a so called concentration camp in the winter of 1938, due to his political views. He had been very vocal in his beliefs and the SS came for him without warning one day and dragged him to a truck. Neither Clarke nor her mother had heard anything from him.

Clarke and her mother's money was starting to run out during the summer of 1939 so they used the last of their money to get themselves and ten other people to England. They were able to stay with an old friend of Abby's, Clarke's mother, called Marcus Kane. He worked for the British government, he was an officer in the army. He had a lot of money that he had inherited from his parents, and because he had no family of his own, he was happy to let an old friend and her daughter stay with him.

Abby had been born into a rich English family whom had an estate in the middle of England. She had gone to fine schools and been able to become a doctor with the help of her parents' money and influence. Her parents had died in an automobile accident in 1910 and her only brother had inherited the estate.

Abby had spent a few years traveling in Europe after her parents' death and met Jacob Griffin in a café in Berlin, they had hit it off right away. She decided then and there that Germany seemed a good place to settle. Far enough away from her past so it wouldn't bother her but still close enough that she could visit old friends if she wished.

They had only been living in England for a month when Germany invaded Poland. Everyone feared war and it was soon confirmed that that was the case. Poland fell quickly to the new strong German war machine and many countries would soon follow.

When the war broke out Clarke was overcome by the feeling of uselessness. She wanted to _do_ something to help people instead of sitting with her mother in a flat they had been able to rent in London. Abby's brother was kind enough to give them some money to live on since they arrived in the country practically penniless.

She decided to become a nurse, she was able to finish the nursing course quickly due to her previous studies of medicine. She became a qualified nurse in the Army and was stationed at a military hospital in London for her initial training.

Clarke was glad for her years spent at an English boarding school, because of that she knew English almost fluently and with a bit of practice she was able to almost completely train away her German accent. She had heard the derogatory comments which were spoken in the streets towards Germany and its people, she had seen shops with German sounding names be defaced and she did not want this attention aimed towards herself.

She proved to be able to perform excellently under pressure and was commended for her work when the London Blitz started in 1940.

There were many times when she sat together in the underground hearing the bombs falling overhead, when she felt fear. Fear like she had never felt before, the whistling sounds of the bombs falling made her wince every time. She never truly slept in the shelters during the air raids, she would doze off but then quickly jerk awake. She was never sure if it was a noise that would wake her or the dust falling down on her from the ceiling when a bomb fell up above.

She always felt dread when the raid stopped and they were all allowed back up to the streets, she always feared that there would be nothing left but rubble when she stepped out into the morning sun. She had never seen a destroyed building before the war, nor had she seen so many dead and injured people either.

After a time she started to feel jaded towards the violence, she still jerked awake when she heard the bombs but she didn't react as much to the dead and injured as she did before, she still performed her duties and was able to empathise with the patients, but she wasn't as shocked at seeing burned or maimed people anymore.

In the beginning of 1942 she was recruited to join a new initiative called the SOE, Special Operations Executive, she didn't know who had recommended her until she arrived at the training facility and was met by Marcus Kane.

During the next three months she was trained in hand-to-hand combat, radio communication, understanding maps and handling different weapons. She had some trouble at first in the hand-to-hand combat but she had always been a quick study and learned quickly from her mistakes.

She had an ear for languages and besides English and German, she also spoke French and some Italian.

She was laying in her assigned bunk reading news from the front when she heard someone enter, she quickly stood up and saluted when she noticed that it was Marcus who entered followed by her instructor in radio communication and map reading, Corporal Sinclair. They both saluted back and Marcus said:

"Good evening Clarke, we would like to speak to you about a possible assignment, so if you would follow us."

He turned around and started walking after he finished speaking and Clarke and Sinclair had to quickly follow him. They lead her to the main building of the facility to a small office, which belonged to Marcus. He sat down behind the desk and Sinclair stood to attention next to him. He motioned for Clarke to sit but she said:

"I would rather stand, if you don't mind."

He just nodded in response and then he shuffled some papers on his desk.

"You've gotten great reviews from your instructors, Clarke, and we believe that we have a mission which you would be especially suited for. If you agree, of course." Marcus looked her straight in the eyes while speaking and a small smile showed on his face when he said the last part.

"I would like to help in any way I can, Sir" Clarke responded in a serious tone of voice.

"The mission is in occupied France, a man who works for us in the French Resistance was taken by the Germans after a planned sabotage went wrong, he was the only one from his group captured. We learned before his capture that he knows vital information about troops stationed in and around Paris, information which would be very helpful for us. We need him out of the Germans' hands. We have information that he was taken to a military hospital for treatment of injuries sustained during his capture." Marcus explained it all in a very calm and collected voice while trying to gauge Clarke's reaction.

"That's where you come in Griffin, we know that you have extensive experience as a nurse and know both German and French. Your German is flawless and we need someone on the inside of the hospital to be able to make contact and extract the man. We have contacts in France that can fake your credentials well enough that they should believe that you're a new nurse arrived from Germany to the hospital, we've had word that they have recently requested more personnel from Germany so it should go unnoticed when you enter the hospital where they're keeping him. The hospital is located a couple of kilometers outside of Paris." Sinclair said while gesturing towards a map on the desk.

"How will I know who and where he is?" Clarke wondered.

"You will have a full briefing on the mission tomorrow, but his name is Bellamy Blake, he is 25 years old and he looks like this." Marcus said while handing Clarke a photograph of a young man with a sour expression on his face. He had dark hair, dark eyes and a very distinctive look about him, she thought that it would at least be easy to identify him in a Nazi hospital. The so called "aryan" look was how most of the officers and soldiers there would look like, the man would most likely stand out like a sore thumb amongst the paleness of the Germans. Which could be a problem during the extraction part.

"We do not know where inside the hospital he is kept but I have faith in your finding abilities. As I said, the full briefing is tomorrow and you will depart soon after." Marcus dismissed her with a nod and a small wave towards the door, she saluted both men before turning towards the door and leaving the room.


	2. Chapter 2

Clarke woke up exhausted, she had barely slept during the night. The day before had consisted of a debriefing for her upcoming mission, which was to happen today.

Marcus Kane and Corporal Sinclair explained to her about Bellamy Blake, he was a high ranking member in the Paris based quarter of the Resistance. He had gone to University before the war, studying History. He had left University when the war broke out, his mother had earlier in the year been taken by the Germans for deportation to Germany. Blake had then joined the French resistance to try to fight back against the German invaders of his homeland.

They had also briefed her on what she was going to do when she arrived in France, she was to be dropped from an plane in a French field in the middle of the night. In her bag she would have a German nurse uniform, papers which identified her as Clarke Kaufmann, a 23 year old German war nurse with much experience, fake transfer papers from a German military hospital with references from the Head nurse, money for traveling and a small map printed on fabric which she could hide easily.

During the day she was made to study the map of the area of France where she would be dropped, she needed to know which roads there were, how far to the nearest train station and other such things, so that she could find the hospital she was supposed to infiltrate.

The plan was that after she landed she would hide her parachute and flight suit somewhere nearby and make her way to a train station in a nearby town. There she would buy a ticket which would take her to the small town outside of Paris where the hospital was located.

She would try to blend in with the morning commuters, make it seem as though she came from the town, not as though she had been walking all night. She had makeup and fresh clothes in her bag, to be able to blend in better.

She got out of bed and started to get ready for the day ahead, because she would not leave until the evening, the day would consist of more map reading and learning her new persona perfectly, she could not screw up on that.

She was nervous both because of the possible success or failure of the mission and because she had never jumped out of an actual plane before. She had of course gone through practice jumps, where she and the other recruits jumped with a fake parachute on their backs from a ramp to the ground, to simulate what it would be like to jump. But she had never _actually_ jumped, this would be her first official mission and she did not want to fail.

Before she went to do the different preparations for the upcoming mission, she sat down at a small desk and started to write a letter. The letter was to be sent to her mother if she did not make it back from the mission, if they confirmed her death. She hoped that the letter would never have to be sent but she did not want her mother to wonder about her thoughts on the subject.

In the letter Clarke wrote that she knew that there was a possibility that she could die on this mission, but she was prepared for the possibility. She wrote of her father and how he was brave to try to help people, to make them aware of some of the bad things the Nazi government were doing and she wanted to be brave like him, to try to do whatever she could to help those of their countrymen who were hurting. She wanted the war to end and if she knew that she could do anything to help with that then it would be against her conscience to not do it. It would haunt her forever if she did.

She asked her mother in the letter to be proud of her and forgive her for her decision which had led to her death, and if she couldn't then she hoped that she at least would remember her with love and fondness. She ended the letter with:

 _I hope that you already know this, but I will say it anyway. Mum, I love you, I know that you have done many things to try to make life good and happy for me and I know that I haven't always shown my appreciation for your actions, least of all in the last year after dad's death. I hope that you know in your heart that I love and appreciate everything you've done for me._ _Please remember the good times that we had and try not to dwell on this._

 _We'll meet again in the next life._

 _Your loving daughter Clarke._

Tears welled up in her eyes when she thought of her mother reading the letter after she was declared dead, and she hoped her mother wouldn't resent her for leaving her, but she knew what she had to do. She couldn't live with herself if she did nothing just to spare her mother's feelings. A couple of teardrops escaped her eyes and fell on to the paper, smudging some of the words, but the letter was still readable so Clarke put the letter in an envelope and sealed it. She wrote her mother's name on the back: Abigail Griffin. She didn't write an address because she knew that Marcus would be able to find her and deliver it if the time ever came that it would be necessary.

Clarke started to get ready for the most likely exhausting day ahead, she got dressed in the uniform which had been assigned to her. It consisted of a white button up shirt, a green long skirt, and a tie and hat in the same green. Her blonde hair was shoulder length and she had it up in a simple bun to keep it out of her face. She had a jacket as well in the same green as the rest of the uniform but she left it by her bed because it was warm in the July air and she did not want to sweat profusely during the day.

She went through the day methodically doing everything needed during the preparation for the mission. She immersed herself in the tasks put before her, more map reading, practicing telling people about 'herself', some hand-to-hand training and, lastly, practicing setting up and operating a small radio. She tried all day not thinking about the possible outcomes of the mission, tried to use the preparations as a distraction and was able to, for a while.

She was dismissed before the evening and was told to rest a bit because she would not sleep much during the night. She finished packing everything before laying down in bed and falling asleep almost immediately.

She wouldn't be the only one dropped into France that night, she wouldn't even be the only one on the mission, accompanying her would be a radio operator/mechanic/explosive expert called Raven Reyes. She and Raven had hit it off during training, Raven liked Clarke's dark humor and Clarke liked Raven's attitude, she never took any shit from anyone.

Raven's family immigrated to England before Raven was born and she grew up in the East End of London, where her father owned a mechanics shop, which was where she learned everything she could about cars and engines. She was recruited to the SOE from the Army where she worked as a mechanic and had gotten excellent references.

Raven was supposed to make her way to a safe house in Paris after they were dropped, where she would set up their radio equipment and make contact with their superiors. She would try to stay out of sight and wait for Clarke to come with Bellamy Blake, if all went according to plan.

If Clarke did not arrive in a week then Raven would contact their superiors and tell them about the failure of the mission, and receive new orders.

Clarke and Raven shared a dormitory so she was also there, sleeping, when their superior Alexa came in to wake them and make sure that they were ready for the mission. They made their way to the hangar where the plane that were supposed to drop them in France was stationed.

They entered the big hangar and headed towards where the pilot and copilot were standing speaking with Marcus Kane. They saluted when they reached them and then Marcus said:

"I have faith in all of you to complete your mission, God be with you."

He nodded to everyone in turn and then left the building. Raven and Clarke were then led to a corner of the hangar where two big bags laid. They first put on green flight suits, which were like green overalls, and were after that helped to put on the heavy bags containing their parachutes.

The four of them, Clarke, Raven and the two pilots, walked as a group outside where the big plane was waiting for them. The plane that was going to take them over the channel to France.

Clarke was expecting to feel more nervous at that moment but when she and Raven entered the plane and sat down on the bench that was nailed to one of the inner walls, she felt a strange calm settle inside her.

Neither she nor Raven spoke during the ascent of the plane, both feeling a bit queasy because neither had been in an actual flying plane before, and were therefore not used to the feeling of outside pressure and shaking.

It was very loud inside the plane and because they didn't feel like shouting at each other, they did not speak while flying over the channel. Clarke closed her eyes and tried to get some shut-eye during that time but she couldn't fall asleep, the noise from the engines kept her awake.

Clarke jerked almost out of her seat when there was a loud _BANG_ somewhere near the plane. The copilot shouted to them from the cabin:

"The Germans are shooting at us from the ground, don't worry we'll make it!"

He most likely tried to keep both himself and the two women calm. It did not really work since the first _BANG_ was then followed by many more, some that the pilots had to swerve to not be hit by. Clarke swore that she heard one right behind where she sat against the inner wall of the plane.

The bangs stopped a couple of minutes later and they were out of the firing range of the Germans' guns. They flew for a short while longer then the red light that meant that they were supposed to stand near the hatch they were going to jump through lit up, so they could make themselves ready for the jump.

That was when Clarke felt like a swarm of butterflies started to flap their wings inside her stomach. She stood behind Raven, the line to the mechanism in the parachute which controlled the opening of the chute was clipped to a wire in the ceiling, they were going to jump so low that the parachute would open immediately.

The door opened and the red light turned off and a green light above it turned on signaling that they were at the designated drop site and that it was time to jump. The copilot was now standing next to the door and also signaled Raven to jump. Raven stood stock still in front of her for a moment then she took a step forward and disappeared.

Clarke took a step forward and was standing in the door she looked at the man beside the door and waited for him to wave her out. He did and for a moment Clarke considered staying, but her feet were faster than her doubts, she had trained extensively for this. She took the big step forward into the unknown.

She felt for a second the feeling of falling, it was an exhilarating feeling that she had never experienced before, then she felt a mighty jerk when the canvas above her opened completely and held her up in the air.

The descent was slower than she thought but still went by fast, she looked down trying to see anything on the ground, any landmarks which could tell her if they had been dropped at the right location but it was pitch black all around her. She tried to see if she could see Raven but was not able to.

The ground seemed to rise up to meet her and then she landed with a small _thump_. She liked that her feet was again on solid ground and took deep breath and reveled in it for a short moment. Then she packed up her parachute and put her pack on her bag, she had had it strapped to her stomach during the jump.

She looked around and, from the little she could see, she was standing at the edge of a field, at the beginning of a small forest area. This seemed to correspond with the maps she had studied but she wasn't certain yet. She walked slowly and carefully over to the small wooded area and and looked around for a thick bush, where she could hide her parachute and flight suit. She found one and got herself out of the flight suit, she had in the hangar, before putting on the flight suit, put on a nice dress, made for traveling, and had in her pack a coat and shoes. She pulled out the coat from her pack and put it on, it was a bit chilly in the woods, she also pulled out her electric torch.

She walked out on to the field again and looked around to see if there were any lights, which could indicate Raven nearby. They had learnt short codes to flash with the torch, which would prove they were not the enemy. She stood still, moved her head around, and concentrated on searching.

She saw a small flash of light a couple of hundred meters along the edge of the wooded area, and brought up her torch and flashed the code to see if it was Raven or someone else.

She waited with baited breath, not daring to breathe, for a few seconds until she saw the right sequence of flashes coming from the light's direction. She quickly started to move towards it and was not surprised when she met Raven halfway there.

They went into the wooded area and looked for a secluded place with good cover where their lights wouldn't be noticed if someone happened to pass by. They settled in a small hole surrounded on two sides by thick bushes and trees on the other sides. Clarke took out the map from her pack while Raven took out a compass from hers. They hunkered down on the ground and looked it over. They were able to pinpoint an approximated location and worked from there where the road they were looking for should be located.

They did not speak much, just murmured to each other a bit about the map and locations, then when they had decided that they should go and where to, they took their packs and started walking.

It took them about twenty minutes to reach the road which they hoped were the one they needed. The road was situated between two towns which both had railway stations, so it had been decided that to lessen the chance of them both being caught, they were to go opposite directions and take different transportations.

They looked at each other when they reached the road and Clarke said:

"Good luck, Raven. I hope no one tries to stop you on the way, you know where your gun is right?" her voice sounded concerned and she had trouble swallowing down the bad feeling she had about them both going alone. But she knew it was for the best.

"You're such a mother hen Clarke. I know exactly where both my gun and my extra explosives are located, don't you worry about me. " She said with a small smirk on her face, though she tried to put on a brave face, Clarke had gotten to know her well over the past months and could see nervousness in her features.

"Good luck to you too." Raven continued and pulled Clarke into a short but warm hug.

Clarke and Raven then separated and walked out on to the road. They exchanged a quick look before turning their backs on each other and walking in different directions, Clarke going to the left and Raven to the right. Both walking in the chilly dark night, thinking about what awaited them when they arrived.


	3. Chapter 3

Clarke walked for a couple of hours until she could see the edge of the town she was headed for. She had hid in the ditch at the side of the road every time she saw an approaching vehicle, and had not seen anyone else walking in the night.

It was still pretty dark when she arrived but the sun was starting to come up. She decided to wait for about an hour in the woods by the town and walked there and sat down on her pack for a while. She had some food in her pack, so she got that out to eat something to bolster her strength.

She checked the watch she had on her wrist and when it read 6:30 she left the wooded area and went back to the road. She looked around to check that no one was watching and then she changed out of the walking boots she was wearing, to a pair of ordinary heels. She also put on a simple hat to look more professional, as though she was headed for her first day at a new job.

While waiting in the woods, she had changed into a regular German nurse's uniform, which brought her back to her days studying to become a doctor, even though she hadn't finished the education she had still spent time at a learnings hospital in Berlin and remember seeing all the nurses running around doing their jobs, she remembered trying to avoid getting in the way of them because they always seemed to be in a hurry somewhere.

She straightened the uniform and put the coat from her bag over it, not to really cover it but because it she thought it seemed more normal and everyday to wear the coat on top. She did not want to stand out at any time during her journey.

She walked into the town, she tried to look discreetly at the street signs, to make it seem to an observer that she knew where she was going, and more importantly that it didn't look like she had just arrived. She managed to make her way to the train station, it was not difficult she had observed the maps carefully and it was located near the center of town.

She walked through the doors to the station and walked up to the window where they sold tickets. Above the window there were two signs where it was written that it was the ticket office, one sign was in French and the other was in German. It was easy to see that the German sign had been added later, its colors did not match any other signs inside the station.

There wasn't anyone standing in line for the ticket office, but she wasn't the only one inside the station, she saw others like her, like the woman she was pretending to be, waiting for their early morning commute train towards Paris. She tried a small smile towards the man sitting behind the counter selling tickets. He seemed tired and did not smile back, he glanced her over but he did not seem to notice anything off.

"Good morning, one one way ticket to bj vjvbvhvh please."

She said this in French, her French was good but not perfect as she had an accent, and noticed that the ticket seller looked at her and sneered a bit then handed her the ticket with a grunt. He did not seem to like that she was German, there were probably more Germans than they wanted there already one more was probably not very welcome.

She walked through the station over to the train platform to wait for the train, she saw a man dressed as a train conductor and she walked over to him and asked:

"Excuse me, when is the train supposed to arrive?"

"Twenty minutes, Miss," the man said and nodded in her direction.

She decided to walk over and sit down on a bench by the entrance to the station from the platform, to wait for the train.

When she had sat there for about ten minutes she saw two German soldiers come out to the platform. They both carried guns hanging from straps on their left shoulders. She started to feel more nervous by the ticking of the clock.

The two soldiers started to walk around the platform, they walked up to a woman standing waiting on the other side of the platform from Clarke. They stopped in front of the woman and one of them said:

"You need to show us your papers, or you're not allowed to board the train when it arrives."

The woman quickly got her papers out of her handbag and handed them over to the soldier with a shaking hand. He looked through the papers, checking that the information seemed to be right. He stood there for a long moment then he handed the woman back her papers and said:

"Everything seems alright Miss, have a good day."

The other soldier said nothing, then they moved on own the platform, checking everyone's papers as they went along. They organised it so that the ones whose papers they had checked stood at one edge of the platform and the ones whose papers were unchecked stood and waited for their turn.

Clarke started to feel even more nervous, as the two soldiers came closer. She was afraid that the forged papers she had with her were easily spotted by the two soldiers and that she would fail her mission before it really got started.

She stood up from the bench she was sitting on, when the two men approached her. She tried to smile at them both to try to seem non-threatening and to hide her nerves.

"Your papers please, Miss." one of the soldiers said and put his hand forward to accept the papers.

She reached into her purse and rooted around in there looking for her papers. She felt the texture of the paper and brought the papers out, she then handed them to the man. She tried to look as though she had nothing to hide, which was difficult since her skin felt as though there were hundreds of bugs crawling underneath it waiting to burst forth.

The man who was looking through her papers was wearing a regular green German army uniform with the Nazi flag on his arm. He was taller than her, she could see that his hair was light brown underneath his hat, it stuck out a bit along the rim.

He studied her papers intently then his head rose abruptly and he looked her in the eyes and asked in German:

"Which part of Berlin are you from Miss Kaufmann?" he smiled as he said it and he did not seem as though he did not think she was who she claimed to be.

She thanked her training when she was able to not let the moment of confusion over the name show on her face.

"The central part, I used to live near Tiergarten. Do you come from Berlin?" she said in German and smiled at him, trying to seem friendly and inviting.

The soldier smiled back at her, he must have been around her age, maybe even younger, she saw a small blush stain his cheeks when she smiled.

"No, but I've always wanted to visit, I've heard that it's a nice city, with many sights. Why did you leave?" he seemed mostly curious, not suspicious so Clarke answered:

"To serve my homeland, I heard of all the casualties and injuries in the last war so when this began I decided that it was my duty as a nurse to help my country. " she said in German with as much conviction as she could muster.

The other soldier who had been standing quietly while they spoke said:

"I'm sorry Miss, but Hans and I must continue our control of the other passengers waiting, the train should be arriving soon." He tilted his hat in her direction as Hans with whom she had been speaking, handed back her papers.

"I hope you have a good journey, Miss" he said as he walked with his fellow soldier over to a man standing further down the platform.

Clarke noticed how tense she had been as she felt her shoulders relax a bit when she saw the backs of the two soldiers. She put her papers back in her purse just as a cloud of smoke started to fill the platform as the train approached the station.

The train stopped and passengers started to depart, the conductor from the train shouted:

"All passengers headed for Paris can now board."

Clarke walked over the platform towards the third class carriage she had a ticket for and boarded the train. She walked along the hallway to her seat and sat down on the hard wooden seat across from a man reading the day's newspaper.

She looked over the aisle in the middle of the carriage and felt huge relief when she spotted Ravens dark hair. They had made the plan to try to get on the same train and both buy third class tickets, to have a small confirmation that they both managed to not get caught on the walk.

This would be the last time for possibly a couple of days or more, when Clarke and Raven would see each other. They would not talk, they did not want to raise any suspicion on each other or let anyone know that they knew each other.

Clarke turned her head towards the window when she felt the train lurch out of the station. She was supposed to wait three stops before departing the train, she hoped that it would be a calm journey.

She watched the countryside pass by outside the window, some small houses here and there and a small village or two. The scenery was nice but Clarke could not focus on it, she thought back to the last time she rode a train in France, with her mother and a family of three heading for the coast towards England to get as far away from Germany as they could manage. That had been anything but a calm journey.

She remembered sitting anxiously next to her mother hoping not to get their papers checked, her mother assumed that they were flagged as criminals by the German government and they were afraid to get sent back. They had had members of the SS knocking on their doors twice before they left Berlin. They said they were just doing regular checks of apartments for illegal items, but both Clarke and her mother had known better. Her father's name was well known as a traitor by the Nazi government and they wanted to bring down her mother as well, afraid that he had told her things that they didn't want her to know.

She was so deep in her thought that she almost missed when the conductor walked through saying that they were almost upon her stop.

She stood up when the train started to slow on approach and took her bag from where she had put it down on the empty seat next to hers. She walked towards the door and had to hold on to the back of a seat when the train came to a stop, to not fall flat in the middle of the aisle.

She refrained from the urge to glance back towards Raven, to assure herself that she was still there, she felt that it was too risky. The conductor opened the door and she stepped down onto the platform.

It looked very similar to the train station she had departed half an hour earlier, only it had many more German soldiers standing about. She followed the large sign that was hanging from the ceiling which pointed towards the exit to the station, but she was not able to leave without getting stopped. It was another soldier who demanded to see her papers. This man was not as ameable as the one on the last station, he seemed hurried and huffed a bit when she had to dig around in her purse for her papers.

She handed them to the soldier, who looked through them quickly. He glanced her over seeming to try to asses if she was who she claimed to be. He seemed satisfied and gave her back her papers and then waved her off towards the exit.

She wanted to run out of the station to get away from people who might be able to see through her false papers and arrest her, but she forced herself to walk calmly through the exit and out onto the street.

The street was quite busy and there were many soldiers milling about, wounded soldiers it seemed, there were many with white bandages on some part of their body. She had been prepared for the possibility for many soldiers, it was the location of a military hospital, but it was one thing to theoretically know something and a whole other thing to see it with her own eyes.

She had stopped on the sidewalk for a short moment to look around and get her bearings. She had studied the route she needed to take from the station to the hospital intensely, she just needed to take a breath.

She walked South down the street in the direction she knew the hospital was supposed to be located. Thankfully the Germans who used the hospital for their wounded and the train station to shuttle them places, had put up a large sign which read in large black letters: _Krankenhaus 3km._

She followed the road towards the hospital, after a while she was joined on her walk by another woman dressed in a German nurse's uniform. She smiled at the woman and said in German:

"Hello,my name is Clarke, do you work at the hospital?"

The woman looked at her, she seemed to size her up and clearly noticed the uniform underneath Clarke's coat. She smiled towards her and answered:

"Yes, are you heading there?"

"Yes, I was afraid for a moment that I was going the wrong way, you're the first person going this way I've seen dressed for hospital work." Clarke said and tried to look grateful, for the knowledge that she wasn't 'lost', she had known where she was going.

"Are you new? I can't remember seeing you at the hospital before." The woman looked Clarke up and down trying to remember if she looked familiar.

"Yes, I'm new. I arrived yesterday evening. I transferred from a hospital in Düsseldorf. This is my first day, my name is Clarke Kaufmann." Clarke stopped walking and put out her hand toward the woman to shake.

The woman stopped next to her and shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you Clarke, I'm Maya Vie. I'm happy to hear that we're getting some more manpower at the hospital, there seem to come more injured every day since the British started to bomb near here."

Maya smiled at Clarke and they started walking together again toward the hospital. During the walk Maya told her a bit about the hospital, normal gossip about who's in charge of what tasks, who's the most eligible bachelor among the staff, where to go to be able to get some quiet during breaks, and other such things. Clarke listened attentively trying to weed out information pertinent to her mission. Maya seemed happy to chat away and Clarke did not want to waste this opportunity

Clarke studied Maya while she spoke of a problem she had with a doctor who kept calling her 'Nurse Burger' and how she kept have to correct him. Maya was maybe a year or so younger than Clarke, she was a bit shorter with short dark hair tied back in a bun. She seemed friendly and Clarke hoped that neither she nor anyone else got hurt later when it came time to complete her mission.


End file.
